<?php
/**
 * <https://y.st./>
 * Copyright © 2019 Alex Yst <mailto:copyright@y.st>
 * 
 * This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
 * it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
 * the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
 * (at your option) any later version.
 * 
 * This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
 * but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
 * MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
 * GNU General Public License for more details.
 * 
 * You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
 * along with this program. If not, see <https://www.gnu.org./licenses/>.
**/

$xhtml = array(
	'<{title}>' => '&quot;Sibling Yst&quot;',
	'takedown' => '2017-11-01',
	'<{body}>' => <<<END
<img src="/img/CC_BY-SA_4.0/y.st./weblog/2019/03/14.jpg" alt="Down the river" class="framed-centred-image" width="649" height="480"/>
<section id="drudgery">
	<h2>Drudgery</h2>
	<p>
		My discussion posts for the day:
	</p>
	<blockquote>
		<p>
			Another one of those discussion assignments in which we can&apos;t post about the same things as our peers on a platform that doesn&apos;t allow us to see what our peers post until we&apos;ve already posted and it&apos;s too late?
			I&apos;m way too paranoid for this type of thing.
			There&apos;s only one thing to do about this: I&apos;ve got to make sure I&apos;m the first one to post.
		</p>
		<h3><a href="https://extensions.joomla.org/extensions/extension/official-extensions/weblinks/">Weblinks</a></h3>
		<p>
			There&apos;s only one official Joomla! extension from the Joomla! team, so I thought it might be interesting to talk about it.
			Basically, Weblinks is a hyperlink manager.
			It allows you to add and remove links to other pages, and it allows your users to add links as well.
			You can categorise your links as well.
		</p>
		<p>
			If your Joomla! instance is only a part of your online presence, as it probably is, this extension will help you link from your Joomla! instance to other parts of your online presence.
			If it&apos;s a company instance, maybe you&apos;ll link you your main website, your support site, and your online store.
			If you&apos;re running a weblog, you might use this extension to link to your social feeds or something.
			The possibilities are endless.
			If you&apos;re taking comments from guests, there may be reason why you want to allow them to add links as well.
		</p>
		<h3><a href="https://extensions.joomla.org/extensions/extension/hosting-a-servers/whois-checker/">WhoIS Checker</a></h3>
		<p>
			WhoIS Checker checks the whois records to see if a given domain name is available.
		</p>
		<p>
			The extension&apos;s page mentions that this can be used along with a shop to allow your users to purchase a domain name from you.
			You could also use it on a website about domains in general.
			When I finally set out looking for a short domain to use (I managed to get <code>y.st.</code> for my efforts), whois records were an invaluable tool.
			I couldn&apos;t&apos;ve found a short name as quickly as I did without them.
			While some registries didn&apos;t have whois records available to query, the majority did, if I recall.
			I&apos;m a bit of a domain fanatic, so it&apos;d be fun to add this extension to my Joomla!-based site even without the option to purchase through me available.
		</p>
		<h3><a href="https://extensions.joomla.org/extensions/extension/site-management/browsers-a-web-standards/do-not-track/">Do Not Track</a></h3>
		<p>
			The Do Not Track extension makes it easier to set your website up to respect &quot;do not track&quot; headers.
			Most sites ignore these headers, but they&apos;re supposed to avoid tracking you if your Web browser is sending such headers.
		</p>
		<p>
			If you&apos;re not part of the solution, you&apos;re part of the <del>precipitate</del> <ins>problem</ins>.
			Tracking users is a terrible thing to do anyway.
			If you&apos;re going to track users though, you could at least have the decency not to track the ones that make the effort to configure their browsers to specifically ask you nicely not to track them though.
			This extension will help you do that.
			You&apos;ll still need to set up some access levels yourself and whatnot, but this extension gives you the tools you need to do the right thing.
		</p>
	</blockquote>
	<blockquote>
		<h3>Confronting a workmate</h3>
		<p>
			I have a tenancy not to confront my workmates, though it&apos;s not that I thing they&apos;d snap at me or anything.
			It&apos;s just that we&apos;re all in a stressful situation and I don&apos;t need to be adding to their stress by telling them they&apos;re doing something wrong.
			It doesn&apos;t matter, and we should just move on.
			However, when something is really bothering me or just keeps happening, I can and do confront them about it.
			By the time I make a complaint, there&apos;s a very real and very obvious reason for it.
			Very little explanation is needed to show I&apos;m not just being picky, and things work out just fine.
		</p>
		<h3>Confronting a boss</h3>
		<p>
			Confronting a boss is like confronting a workmate to me.
			If I&apos;m complaining about something, there&apos;s a good reason for it and the bosses listen to me.
		</p>
		<p>
			Well, aside from one.
			The head manager doesn&apos;t really care about their underlings, myself included, and won&apos;t do anything about anything.
			I&apos;ve given up trying.
			It&apos;s not that I&apos;m afraid of them or uncomfortable confronting them, it&apos;s just that I&apos;m tired of wasting my breath.
			To be honest, they&apos;re not exactly popular at my workplace, and everyone knows they&apos;re a jerk.
			That includes the lesser bosses.
			There&apos;s nothing we can really do about it.
			It&apos;s the main reason I so desperately want to find another job.
			It&apos;s a toxic environment, and I need to get out of it.
		</p>
		<h3>My communication skills</h3>
		<p>
			In text, I&apos;d say my communication skills boarder on excellent.
			I type very deliberately, and I go back and edit before I present my final work.
			It helps that I practice daily by typing up my journal entries.
		</p>
		<p>
			When it comes to spoken word, I get flustered on important topics or if I get caught off-guard.
			I also tend to come up with better responses after it&apos;s too late to use them.
			Another issue I have is that because I often go over what I&apos;m going to say in my mind before I begin an important conversation, I forget that I haven&apos;t covered certain vital points, as I already covered them in my rehearsal.
			As a result of all that and more, my oral communication skills can be rather shoddy at times if I have something complex to get across.
		</p>
	</blockquote>
	<blockquote>
		<p>
			I doubt anyone&apos;s going to actually read this, unfortunately.
			This rant on the importance of not abusing JavaScript, with a slight tangent on $a[XHTML] elements and $a[CSS], is just the sort of advice modern Web developers tend to ignore, too.
			However, if at least one person reads this and actually takes it to heart, my time won&apos;t have been wasted.
		</p>
		<h3>JavaScript should enhance a page, not provide the base functionality</h3>
		<p>
			Not everyone has, wants to have, or can have JavaScript enabled.
			Using JavaScript to build a for or a website&apos;s navigation is not in any way acceptable.
			An example given by the article is that a Web form might have client-side validation, but still submit if JavaScript is disabled.
			The JavaScript isn&apos;t necessary, it just lets the user know there&apos;s a problem sooner, as they don&apos;t have to wait for the server to return a page reporting the error <a href="https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Learn/Accessibility/CSS_and_JavaScript">(chrisdavidmills, christopherwilson1, qdirks, rajashreemadan, rebekahpadula, scottaohara, sideshowbarker, stephaniehobson, Uemmra3, &amp; unused, 2018)</a>.
			I&apos;ve seen obnoxious forms that come with their submit buttons pre-disabled, thinking the JavaScript can enable the button after client-side validation is complete.
			This is <strong>*not*</strong> good practice, and makes the form completely unusable with JavaScript disabled.
			As this article says, that&apos;s not necessary.
			Form validation can be performed without preventing non-JavaScript-using visitors from using your site.
		</p>
		<p>
			Another example is this school&apos;s classroom website.
			When I first enrolled, the navigation and the private messaging system worked just fine with JavaScript disabled.
			However, several later updates broke various things around here, including both of the above.
			I can no longer read and send private messages on the school website.
			I have to rely on the fact that the site send me an email with the message included, then because the system doesn&apos;t allow email responses, I have to find the profile of any person that contacts me and hope that profile lists an email address.
			I&apos;ve found student profiles tend to have email addresses listed, while professors don&apos;t.
			I&apos;m not sure on why.
			But if an email address is provided, I can then email a response and hope that both the email address is up-to-date and that my email doesn&apos;t hit a spam filter.
			I had an email last week hit someone&apos;s spam filter, so I didn&apos;t get a response until the context was no longer relevant.
			Enabling JavaScript isn&apos;t an option though, as when I do, a bug in the JavaScript eats my coursework, and the support team refuses to do anything about it.
		</p>
		<p>
			Long story short, you don&apos;t know if your users have JavaScript enabled or not, and there are perfectly-valid reasons why a user might have it disabled.
			Make your website function without JavaScript, and use JavaScript only to <strong>*enhance*</strong> the page, not to make it even functional.
			As for menus, fancy menus that drop down as you click on them are completely implementable in $a[CSS].
			You don&apos;t need JavaScript for that, and you shouldn&apos;t use JavaScript for that.
			If done in $a[CSS], everything remains visible even for users with browsers that don&apos;t use $a[CSS].
			The menus just instead display all at once for such users, instead of as they click on parts of your fancy menu bar.
		</p>
		<h3>Don&apos;t assume a given input method is in use</h3>
		<p>
			In the article, the example given was mouseover events.
			You have no idea if your user even has a mouse.
			Instead, device-independent events, such as gaining and losing focus, are a much better option.
			However, you don&apos;t even need to choose one over the other.
			As the article says, you can use the on-focus and on-blur events, which should work for everybody, <strong>*in addition to*</strong> the mouseover events that allow mouse users to activate functionality without needing to click on the element to focus on it <a href="https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Learn/Accessibility/CSS_and_JavaScript">(chrisdavidmills, christopherwilson1, qdirks, rajashreemadan, rebekahpadula, scottaohara, sideshowbarker, stephaniehobson, Uemmra3, &amp; unused, 2018)</a>.
			You can have your fancy mouse-specific events; just add device-independent alternatives alongside them.
		</p>
		<h3>Use $a[XHTML](/$a[HTML]) elements and $a[CSS] correctly</h3>
		<p>
			Use $a[XHTML] elements semantically.
			The <code>&lt;strong/&gt;</code> tag denotes emphasised text, for example.
			There&apos;s no need to reinvent that using custom <code>&lt;span/&gt;</code> tags, for example.
			By using semantic markup, you make your page much easier to understand, especially for people using assistive technologies, such as screen readers <a href="https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Learn/Accessibility/CSS_and_JavaScript">(chrisdavidmills, christopherwilson1, qdirks, rajashreemadan, rebekahpadula, scottaohara, sideshowbarker, stephaniehobson, Uemmra3, &amp; unused, 2018)</a>.
			There&apos;s a lot of semantic information you can add to pages too, using nothing more than basic $a[XHTML] tags.
			For example, the article mentions <code>&lt;abbr/&gt;</code> tags.
			These are used to tell the rendering client what an abbreviation stands for.
			In a lot of graphical browsers, this causes the extended version to be displayed upon mouseover.
			However, the wonderful thing about this tag is that its semantics have nothing to do with mice or any other input devices.
			The client software is free to implement the communication of that information to the human user in whatever way it sees fit.
			In browsers not meant to be used with mice, another option can be made available.
		</p>
		<p>
			$a[CSS] can be used to alter the presentation of a page, but it shouldn&apos;t change the apparent meaning of the page <a href="https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Learn/Accessibility/CSS_and_JavaScript">(chrisdavidmills, christopherwilson1, qdirks, rajashreemadan, rebekahpadula, scottaohara, sideshowbarker, stephaniehobson, Uemmra3, &amp; unused, 2018)</a>.
			Elements on the page should be obvious as to their purpose even when no $a[CSS] is applied.
		</p>
		<div class="APA_references">
			<h3>References:</h3>
			<p>
				chrisdavidmills, christopherwilson1, qdirks, rajashreemadan, rebekahpadula, scottaohara, sideshowbarker, stephaniehobson, Uemmra3, &amp; unused. (2018, December 27). <a href="https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Learn/Accessibility/CSS_and_JavaScript"><cite>CSS and JavaScript accessibility best practices</cite></a>. Retrieved from <code>https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Learn/Accessibility/CSS_and_JavaScript</code>
			</p>
		</div>
	</blockquote>
	<p>
		I got the additions to my site related to my planned course schedule completed today at the meeting.
		Every term, at the last minute, I get the relevant directories for the term that&apos;s just beginning set up.
		It&apos;s usually a mad scramble, because I&apos;ve been trying to take a break from school instead of getting ready for the coming term, but then the term&apos;s about to begin and I need to get the directory set up so I can write in my learning journals and complete unit assignments.
		The directories cause the site to have compilation errors if I haven&apos;t made changes in the navigation code yet, too.
		Each directory has its own navigation menu for switching between assignment submissions from within that course, so if the array elements needed to build that navigation menu are missing, the scripts will halt.
		So I&apos;ve got to make sure all that&apos;s got dummy values, as I won&apos;t have the real values until the term ends.
		I&apos;ve also got to make sure all the dates in my data are correct, make sure the course name is entered, and things like that.
		If I got all that set up for the coming term&apos;s courses right after I finished my final exams, it&apos;d be no big deal, but I&apos;m thoroughly worn down by that point.
		So I don&apos;t.
		But now, I&apos;ve got all the directories, dates, and dummy values entered for the next fourteen courses, which is seven terms.
		I won&apos;t have to deal with this garbage for a while.
		I&apos;d&apos;ve done it for the final five courses after that too, but the academic calendar doesn&apos;t extend that far out yet, and I thought using dummy dates might lead to errors later, as I could easily forget to fix the dates once data was made available, as I&apos;d forget the data was entered before the relevant dates were made available.
		So I held off.
	</p>
	<p>
		Having so many directories set up threw off my degree progress bar.
		It thought I&apos;d completed all those courses, save for two, as it was programmed to consider two courses incomplete, and all other coursework directories to represent a completed course.
		It was messy, but it worked at the time I built it.
		Even then, I had an issue with it though, as it would show the past term as incomplete until the next term began.
		Now, that&apos;s fixed though.
		It now takes the number of course directories that aren&apos;t using dummy navigation values and considers those to be the completed courses.
		That means that as soon as a course is complete and I&apos;ve added the correct navigation values, the course will be marked off as over.
		Two courses are still marked as being in-progress, but those are now subtracted from the number of uncompleted courses, not the number of completed courses.
		That means that between terms, it&apos;s the upcoming term that is labelled as the in-progress term.
		I like that much better.
		It has more of a looking ahead feel instead of looking behind.
	</p>
	<p>
		I&apos;ve also removed the output that showed me what courses are left to take, as that information is much better organised on my homepage.
		In the console output, it was only separated into which courses were mandatory and which were &quot;elective&quot;.
		On my homepage, I&apos;ve already sorted the courses into which term I plan to take each and every one of them, and attached actual dates where possible.
		I&apos;ve also updated the course code/course name importer to yell at me if a new course list I import is missing courses that used to be available.
		That&apos;ll alert me to the need to update my course schedule plan, as well as start taking notes on what courses I&apos;m losing access to and which I&apos;m gaining access to.
		It could be a cycle, or it could be seemingly random.
		I should look for patterns and try to make the best of the situation.
		That said, I&apos;m not anticipating that the course availability list will even change at all.
		I just acknowledge the possibility and don&apos;t want to have to compare the online list to my copy of the list by hand each term.
	</p>
</section>
<section id="religion">
	<h2>Religion</h2>
	<p>
		The missionaries revealed a few new pieces to the puzzle that is their religion today.
		I actually wasn&apos;t expecting them to show up, as I&apos;d left church early this Sunday, so we never set up a meet time.
		We&apos;ve mostly been using the same meet time every week, but for some reason, we&apos;ve been scheduling it one week at a time.
		The guest they brought last week cam by as well.
	</p>
	<p>
		Anyway, we were reading through the scriptures, as there were a couple chapters with a lesson they wanted me to learn.
		One of the passages, once more, painted Jesus as being Jehovah.
		Last time, the passage I&apos;d brought them on that matter said that the father, the son, and the spirit were &quot;one god&quot;, and their explanation was that they&apos;re a singular entity, but that they&apos;re of one goal.
		They compared it to a married couple being &quot;of one flesh&quot;.
		I wouldn&apos;t say a married couple are of one flesh myself, but their response was enough to clarify their beliefs.
		This time, Jesus shows up and claims to the god of the land.
		It was time for more explaining.
		I asked about this, and the explanation they gave was that all things done by &quot;God&quot; are done through Jesus.
		You may notice that I say &quot;&apos;God&apos;&quot; instead of &quot;Jehovah&quot;, and there&apos;s a good reason for that.
		I&apos;ll get back to that in a bit.
		So anyway, &quot;God&quot; doesn&apos;t actually interact with this plane of reality.
		Instead, he acts using Jesus as a proxy.
		Jesus knows what his father wants, and acts according to his will.
	</p>
	<p>
		A bit later though, Jesus claims to be the father and the son.
		Straight from the mouth of Jesus, this appears to be a claim that he is Jehovah, the creator of everything.
		He was born into the flesh so he could sacrifice himself to himself.
		I don&apos;t pussyfoot around with names.
		So when I asked about this, I specifically called the two beings by their names: Jesus and Jehovah.
		And that&apos;s where the next piece of the puzzle they gave me came.
		Jesus, according to them, <strong>*is*</strong> Jehovah.
		The father is the son, and yet the father isn&apos;t the son.
		As it turns out, because Jesus is the one actually interacting with this world, he is the one that created Adam and Eve.
		The father of Jesus created our souls and created Jesus, but Jesus is the father of everything in this reality, because he made it all on his father&apos;s behalf instead of is father making it himself.
		There&apos;s more though.
		Jehovah, also known as Yahweh, or as the missionaries put it, the &quot;god of the old testament&quot;, is Jesus himself.
		As they said previously, the father doesn&apos;t act on this reality, but Jesus does.
		So everything Jehovah did was what Jesus did, and Jehovah is simply another name for him.
	</p>
	<p>
		So Jesus is the son of the father god, making him the son, but also the father of all creation, making him the father.
		When he&apos;s stated to bet the father and the son, according to the Mormons, it doesn&apos;t mean he&apos;s the father of the son and the son of the father.
		That seems like a stretch.
		Stretch or not though, it leaves one very obvious question:
		If Jehovah is not the father of Jesus, because Jehovah <strong>*is*</strong> Jesus, who is the father of Jesus and the creator of our souls?
		I asked, and got a completely irrelevant response about how to get to know &quot;God&quot;, we should try to emulate Jesus and other great prophets.
		I asked again though, and got a much clearer response: Elohim.
		Elohim is the father, and Jesus/Jehovah/Yahweh is the son.
		Elohim does not seem to be mentioned in the Book of Mormon anywhere.
		I&apos;ll need to learn about him later from elsewhere.
	</p>
	<p>
		The missionaries now want to meet with me twice each week.
		That&apos;s going to eat at my study time.
		I&apos;ve agreed to do it though.
		They want to meet on Thursdays at 10:30 and Saturdays at 12:00.
		They also insisted that I start sending the questions I&apos;ve been piling up via email.
		I&apos;m really unenthusiastic about that.
		As you saw above, I&apos;m having to ask basically the same question from several angles before I get the whole story.
		I need to read through the entire book before I have all the necessary angles to present the case I need to to get said story.
		By sending these questions prematurely, I&apos;m probably going to make it so I have to ask the same questions repeatedly instead of having everything I need for the full reveal all at once.
	</p>
	<p>
		The missionaries asked about the upcoming proposed baptism, so I showed them how the Book of Mormon condemns apostates and mentioned how the church considers you a member upon baptism.
		I said it made it very clear that I need to finish reading through their holy word before I can commit to anything.
		Not knowing what I&apos;m committing to is a bad idea.
		They seemed satisfied by that answer, which means I&apos;ve now bought all the time I need.
		That said, I already know the baptism isn&apos;t happening later, either.
		I wouldn&apos;t mind experiencing the baptism out of curiosity, but I&apos;m not joining the church seeing as how their religion has already been debunked so hard by now.
		I do need more time though, because I&apos;m trying to learn what they believe so I can better understand the myths people fall for.
		It&apos;s an educational experience, and it&apos;s made more educational by having them there to explain the things that don&apos;t come up in the scriptures.
		Am I wasting their time?
		I&apos;m not sure.
		They&apos;re here to convert me, but they&apos;re also hear to teach.
		And I&apos;m definitely learning.
		I&apos;ve also made it clear that I&apos;m a non-believer, and I&apos;m trying the things they tell me to.
		If their god is - despite all reason - real, I&apos;m giving him the chance to prove it.
	</p>
	<p>
		The missionaries said that next time they come over, which will be on Saturday, they&apos;ll cover the hierarchy of the church and the titles associated with various positions.
		That should be interesting.
		I&apos;m curious as to what they&apos;ll say when I point out that I don&apos;t fit into their classification system.
		It seems the lowest-ranking people, the people of the congregation, holding no authority whatsoever, from what I&apos;ve seen, are labelled as brothers and sisters.
		I&apos;m not someone of authority, so I&apos;m not an elder or a bishop, et cetera.
		I&apos;m not a man, so I&apos;m not a brother.
		And I&apos;m not a woman, so I&apos;m not a sister.
		When it comes to actual family, I&apos;m a sibling, but I don&apos;t think any such title exists within the church.
		I don&apos;t think there are any plans to call me &quot;Sibling Yst&quot;.
	</p>
</section>
END
);
